Then I realised what had happened. We had taken a hit to the left-side track. Tracks are the weak point of any armoured fighting vehicle. Judging by the sound of it, the treads had broken and were in the process of becoming unwrapped from the mechanism.
I cursed. The tank could still move, for the moment, unless the mechanism became completely fouled, but the left-hand drives would gain far less traction. That was what was sending us circling. I cut power to the right tread and we began moving straight again but at a fraction of our normal speed.
Another shot slammed into us. It was as if we had taken a punch from a giant’s armoured fist. There was the sound of an explosion, the smell of smoke and burning. I heard something clattering metal on metal deep within the hull. I tasted ozone on my tongue and all the lights on the command altar flickered and died. The right stick stopped responding as well. The pedals were simply sprung-steel mechanisms beneath my feet. Nothing happened when I pushed them.
I wasted no time on invocations to try and resurrect the spirit of the dead war machine. It was gone and it was beyond my power to bring it back. Worse than that, the Hydra had ceased to move. It was a sitting duck for whatever weapon had already reduced it to a powerless hulk. If I remained within it I was most likely going to die there.
It was dark within the cockpit now, save for the brief flickers of sparks from the shorting-out systems and the lightning flash illumination of the battlefield being filtered in through the periscope. There was barely enough light to see by. I unstrapped myself and rose from the chair. My boot plunged into something soft and sticky which sucked and resisted when I tried to lift it. I felt soft snakes entangle my leg along with a sopping wetness and I realised I had put my foot into the remains of the dead driver. I pulled it free, filled with an urgent desire to get out of the doomed vehicle before I joined him in death.
I banged my head as I stood up in the unfamiliar smallness of the cockpit and I stretched out my hands to touch the sticky bloodstained walls and guide myself through the gloom.
My heartbeat thundered in my ears and my breathing came in short gasps. Every moment I expected another shot to smash into the tank. As I moved down the corridor I could see a hole had been blown in the Hydra’s side. It was not big enough to scramble through or I would have done so. I made my way through the gloom towards the hatch. The opening had been deformed by the impact of whatever had damaged the tank and the ladder had been bent out of all shape.
I reached up and pulled myself through. My tunic snagged on a protruding edge and held me in place. I glanced around and saw that an enemy gun had been brought to bear on us. The loaders were working frantically and it was set at the perfect angle to hit us. It would not take them more than a few seconds to complete their actions and I was doomed to a fiery death when they did so. The shell would flash across the distance that separated us in a heartbeat. I squirmed and tried to get myself free. Nothing happened for a moment and then I heard fabric tear. The enemy gunner reached for a lever. I knew he was about to fire and that my life was over.
At that moment, brilliant trails of light split the sky overhead. I saw the gunner look up for a second, confused by what was happening. I took advantage of the moment to leap clear of the doomed Hydra. I noticed that Ivan and the others had already done the same. I hit the hard ground with a grunt and rolled, looking for cover. As I did so, I saw the comet trails of light sweep down towards the battlefield, each attached to a glowing dot.
In the first second I cursed. Was this some sort of orbital bombardment? Was I doomed to die under the guns of the Imperial fleet? Or was this some sort of meteor cloud, fallout from the moonfall?
I wondered if it could be aircraft of some sort, but none I could think of moved that fast. In the few seconds since I had noticed them, they had come noticeably closer, flashing down with the speed of falling comets. They seemed to be aimed at the ground.
I found a fold of rock and threw myself behind it. For a few seconds my thoughts were distracted by the explosion of the gun I had abandoned. Obviously the heretic gunner had remembered to fire. His shot turned the Hydra into a pile of burning wreckage. A smell of burning machine oil and roasting flesh filled the air and it struck me that if I had been but a little slower I would have been charred meat within its metal remains.
My heart pounded within my chest. There was a taste of bile in my mouth and my eyes were dazzled. When they cleared again the comet trails had descended further. I saw glittering lights at their tip and I was struck by their familiarity. They seemed to be slowing now, although their velocity was still fantastic. They must be missiles of some kind, aimed at the ground.
I fumbled for my shotgun and glanced around. I was surrounded by heretic soldiers, all of whom were looking up now. I could have taken a clear shot at the nearest but that would just have drawn their attention to me so I scuttled from rock to rock, crab-wise, seeking my way back to Macharius and the Lion Guard.
The flashing comet trails arced towards the battle and I saw for the first time they were aircraft decelerating at an insane speed that would leave anyone within them crippled by the force of gravity exerted on them. Fires flickered around them and the guns near me began to explode. It took me a second to realise that they were being destroyed by the newcomers. It took me another second to recall where I had seen those blessed vessels before.
They were Thunderhawk gunships and they were coming in to land. As they did so there was an enormous earth-shaking noise as the sonic boom they had been outracing caught up with them.
The Space Wolves had arrived riding on the thunder.
The heavy bolters on the Thunderhawks blazed, sparking along the armoured sides of the modified Hydras, cutting through the bodies of men as if they were simply not there. One of them hovered in the air giving covering fire while the others landed, or rather hovered just above the ground. Hatches in their side opened, disgorging massive armoured figures. They leapt to the ground, legs flexing on impact, bolters blazing, not in the least discomposed by the deceleration of a landing that would have left an ordinary man crippled.
I rolled into cover, not wanting to be taken for a heretic and killed by accident. I needn’t have bothered. One of the warriors noticed me. His head twisted to one side, attracted by the movement. His nostrils flared and he looked away, dismissing me as a threat. I might have been insulted if I had not been so relieved.
The Space Wolves numbered fewer than a hundred but that did not stop them. They bounded across the battlefield, moving into the heavy clumps of surprised heretics, turning them at once into prey and cover. Howling battle cries rose over the chaos of the battlefield. Blood fountained and chainswords flickered. In the distance I saw the captured Basilisk lurch forward, gun blasting, picking off its fellow heretics. Somehow the Space Wolves knew to leave it alone, that it was on their side.
They cut through the heretics like a chainsword through bone, smashing into them, leaving piles of corpses in their wake. They were a whirlwind of violence passing over the field.
I kept crawling, hoping to find a position from which I could contribute something to the battle. I found myself staring at a pair of ceramite-encased legs and looked up to see the face of Logan Grimnar looking down at me.